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The village of Whitetree is named on one of Castle Black's old maps. There are at least three other villages south of Whitetree. To the north lies water, possibly a lake, and to the west some small hills.[2]

The village consists of four tumbledown one-room houses, which surround a sheepfold and a well. The houses are constructed of unmortared stone and are roofed with sod. They have windows shuttered with pieces of hide, low doors, packed dirt floors, and a smoke hole in the roof.[2]

Above the village towers an enormous old weirwood tree. Its trunk is nearly eight feet wide and its branches shade the village. The jagged mouth of the heart tree's carved face is a large enough to swallow a sheep.[2]

Recent Events

A Clash of Kings

When the Night's Watch comes to Whitetree during the great ranging, they find the village abandoned by its inhabitants and the sheepfold empty. The men are unnerved by the size and appearance of the village's weirwood tree, which Jon Snow notes it is the biggest tree he has ever seen. Jon discovers burnt human bones in the hollow of the tree's mouth.[2]

Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, has Bedwyck climb the weirwood and sends men to search the village. Jon notes that except for the remaining ashes beneath the smoke hole, the houses show no sign of having been lived in for quite some time. All the furnishing is gone, and all that is left is dry straw bedding in a corner. Whitetree shows no signs of having been attacked.[2]

Jeor decides that the Night's Watch will not camp at Whitetree for the night, and will press on. Before they leave, he has Samwell Tarly send a raven back to Castle Black, notifying Maester Aemon of their location, and that Whitetree is the fourth village the Night's Watch has passed, all empty.[2]

A Storm of Swords

While fleeing south for the Wall after the mutiny at Craster's Keep, Samwell and Gilly stop in a village which Sam hopes is Whitetree, although all wildling villages look alike to him. This village has a handful of one-room hovels with sod roofs, a log longhall overgrown with moss, a stone well, and an empty sheepfold. Sam thinks its weirwood is smaller than Whitetree's, however. While sleeping in the longhall, they are attacked by wights but saved by Coldhands.[4]

A Feast for Crows

When thinking of the wight attack, Sam remembers it as having taken place at Whitetree.[5][6]

Quotes

“

Look at that face. Small wonder men feared them, when they first came to Westeros. I'd like to take an axe to the bloody thing myself.[2]

The wildlings burn their dead. We've always known that. Now I wished I'd asked them why, when there were still a few around to ask. Would that bones could talk. This fellow could tell us much. How he died. Who burned him, and why. Where the wildlings have gone.[2]